How Cloud Hosting Works

What is cloud hosting really? The term 'cloud' appears to be quite modish in today's IT, Internet and web hosting terminology. Still, just a select few really know what cloud hosting is. Possibly it is a clever idea to inform yourself about cloud hosting services. To make a very long story concise, we will first notify you about what cloud hosting is not.

1. Cloud Hosting is Not Limited to a Remote File Storage Exclusively.

1. Delivering a remote disk storage solution, which involves one data storage device for all customers, does not convert any given hosting provider into an actual cloud hosting plans provider.

The cPanel hosting companies name the ability to offer remote data storage solutions a cloud hosting service. Until now there is nothing wrong with the cloud classification, but... we are discussing web hosting services, not remote data storage solutions for personal or corporate needs. There's always one "but", isn't there? It's not sufficient to dub a shared web hosting service, powered by a one-server hosting platform, exactly like cPanel, a "cloud hosting" service. This is so because the remaining fractions of the entire hosting platform must be functioning in precisely the same way - this does not relate only to the remote data storage. The rest of the services entailed in the whole hosting procedure also need to be remote, separated and "clouded". And that's really tough. A very scanty number of hosting firms can actually do it.

2. It Includes Domains, Mailbox Aliases, Databases, File Transfer Protocols, Web Hosting CPs, etc.

Cloud hosting is not restricted to a remote disk storage only. We are talking about a hosting service, serving many domain names, web sites, electronic mails, and so on, are we not?

To name a hosting service a "cloud hosting" one demands a lot more than delivering simply remote file storage mounts (or perchance servers). The email server(s) need to be devoted only to the e-mail related services. Carrying out nothing different than these particular tasks. There might be only one or maybe a whole bundle of email servers, depending on the total server load produced. To have an actual cloud hosting service, the remote database servers should be operating as one, regardless of their actual quantity. Doing nothing different. The same goes for the customers' web hosting CPs, the FTP, and so on.

3. There are Cloud Domain Name Servers (DNSs) as well.

The DNSs (Domain Name Servers) of a real cloud hosting firm will support numerous server farm facility sites on different continents.

Here's an example of a DNS of a real cloud hosting plans provider:

dns1.hessehosting.com

dns2.hessehosting.com

If such a Domain Name Server is offered by your hosting services provider, it's not a sure thing that there is a cloud web hosting platform in use, but you can absolutely be certain when you observe a Domain Name Server like the one below:

dns658.hostgator.com

dns659.hostgator.com

that there isn't any cloud web hosting platform. This sort of Domain Name Server plainly exhibits that the hosting platform in use is one-server based. Probably it's cPanel. cPanel is a one-server hosting solution and holds a 98+ percent market share. In cPanel's case, a single server tackles all hosting services (web, electronic mail, DNS, databases, FTP, web hosting Control Panel(s), files, etc.).

Remote File Storage - The Perverted Definition of Cloud Hosting.

So, a cloud hosting service is not limited only to a remote file storage service, as numerous web hosting companies wish it was. Sadly for them, if that was the case, the majority of the file hosting corporations would have been categorized as cloud web hosting ones a long time ago! They are not classified as such, as they plainly provide file hosting services, not cloud hosting services. The file web hosting platform looks really quite plain, in comparison with the web hosting platform. The remote file storage platform is not a cloud hosting platform. It cannot be, since it's just one small fraction of the whole cloud web hosting platform. There's plenty more to be discovered in the cloud hosting platform: the web hosting Control Panel cloud, the database clouds (MySQL, PostgreSQL), the Domain Name Server cloud, the FTP cloud, the email cloud and... in the not too distant future, probably a number of new clouds we currently are not aware of will appear out of nowhere.